Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor, Nqaba Bhanga, has announced plans to deal with the Ditchling Substation, after another electricity outage at this substation has left many areas in Gqeberha in the dark for the upteenth time.
Huge parts of the city have been without electricity since 16:00 today, June 5 due to the electricity outage at the Ditching Substation (Kragga Kamma 1 Tee 66 kV ocb). The substation feeds electricity to large portions of the Metro.
This power outage is on top of Stage 2 loadshedding that is currently being implemented by Eskom.
In a statement released by the Municipality, Bhanga said that these power outages “should not be happening this frequently”.
“I visited the Ditchling Substation with the Executive Director: Electricity and Energy on 25 May to assess the state of the substation and receive a report on what officials planned to do about the continuous failures,” Bhanga said.
He added that the 66kV circuit breakers were installed in 1995. “The circuit breakers are Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF6) breakers, which have a lifespan of 20-25 years. The trend of current failures means these circuit breakers have reached the end of their useful lifespan.
“New circuit breakers have been ordered and delivered to the Metro. Perl road 1, 66kV circuit breaker, which was damaged on 23 May 2021, is currently being replaced.”
According to Bhanga, a total of nine circuit breakers will be replaced – a process which will take three months to complete and has already commenced.
“This is critical maintenance which should have been undertaken already, but as with many maintenance matters sadly has not – the last two years of poor political leadership in this Metro have resulted in this situation of a failure to maintain critical infrastructure. The coalition government is fixing our beautiful Metro, we appreciate your support as we do so!”
In the meantime staff are attending to the restoration of supply, but no timeframe has been given.
“The Metro apologises for the inconvenience.”
Source: NMBM media statement
